Labyrinth (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author), Mark Sullivan (Author) "During their second foray outside the lunar module, James Elder and Howard Kennedy were jolted about as their moon rover lurched across a jagged landscape..." (more)
Key Phrases: golden infinity symbol, pale scientist, breakdown pile, Tower Ridge, Uncle Jeff, Furnace River (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While earning enthusiastic reviews for his thrillers (The Purification Ceremony, etc.), Sullivan hasn't sold in really impressive numbers. His fourth novel could catapult him onto national bestseller lists, however, for not only is it expertly crafted, it's one of the most exciting yarns of this millennium. In an elaborate cave system in eastern Kentucky, a moon rock lies hidden. This rock has superconductivity, which, if harnessed, will solve the world's energy crises that's why Robert Gregor, the young scientist who discovered its properties three years ago, killed his mentor, who threatened to claim the discovery for himself; Gregor then secreted the rock in the cave before he was captured by police. Now it's 2007 and NASA, to train for a return to the moon to mine further superconductive moon rocks, is sponsoring a media-saturated expedition into the cave system, an expedition led by renowned caver Tom Burke and including his daughter, Cricket, 14, but not his wife, Whitney, an expert caver haunted by a recent foray into those caves that killed her companion. As the NASA expedition begins, Gregor, aided by a guard, escapes from prison with two tough cons and heads for the cave to retrieve the moon rock. Most of the novel's intense action takes place in the underground labyrinth, a fabulous otherworldly backdrop that Sullivan exploits brilliantly as he rotates his narration among Burke's party (soon captured by Gregor and his cohorts), a rescue team guided by the fearful Whitney and a third team of NASA scientists and U.S. military who plan to get the rock at any cost. The novel is honeycombed with plot twists and cliffhangers, giving it a slightly contrived, Saturday matinee feel (and it'll make a terrific movie; Scott Rudin has optioned rights), but Sullivan's sensitively constructed characters give it weight and depth. This is a great summer read.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

A respected journalist and novelist, Sullivan returns with the story of a cave researcher who has sworn she will never return to the depths until her husband and daughter disappear on a caving expedition. A film is coming.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743439813
• ISBN-13: 978-0743439817
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,734,249 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful tale that winks at the movie industry, August 17, 2002

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Labyrinth: A Novel (Hardcover)

In 2004 at the University of Tennessee, internationally renowned physicist Dr. MacPherson notices the findings that an assistant Gregor obtains with a moon rock specimen. An elated MacPherson claims the results that show rock 66095 contains strong superconductivity traits as his own. He boasts how he will receive the Novel prize for the work. A stunned Gregor kills the professor. Gregor is convicted of the crime, but not before he hides the rock inside Labyrinth Cave, Kentucky.

Three years later NASA hires Tom Burke and his daughter Cricket to escort them into Labyrinth Cave to find the missing rock. His wife Whitney suffers nightmares and though internationally famous refuses to enter the cave where last year her assistant died while she barely escaped.

However, Gregor escapes with some fellow prisoners and heads to Labyrinth Cave to collect the rock that will make him rich and famous. He and his associates capture the Burkes and the NASA team inside the cave. Only Whitney can lead a rescue party, but she has not entered any cavern since the nightmare occurred, but the stakes are the two people she loves most.

At times LABYRINTH seems more like a Hollywood thriller than a novel, but Mark T. Sullivan cleverly augments the plot with a personal crisis and an incredible underworld panorama. The story line is loaded with action on a global scale and on an individual level as the world is in trouble if Gregor regains the rock while Whitney battles herself. Mr. Sullivan provides a powerful tale that winks at the movie industry, which works fine for this novel.

Harriet Klausner

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a caver's thoughts....., December 6, 2002

By	David W. Straight (knoxville, tennessee United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Labyrinth: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've been caving in Tennessee for almost 30 years, and I teach at
the University of Tennessee, where the first murder takes place.
Think of a short, 1-page document about how to set up, say, a DVD
player that was written by a Sumerian with minimal knowledge of
English, but who owns a Sumerian-English dictionary. So the
words are all English, but the words often make no sense in the
context. Labyrinth has some of that flavor--you say "Huh? Did I
miss something?"

A rock with mysterious powers is brought back from the moon in
1972. In 2004, the villian, Dr Gregor, murders his professor and
steals the rock. In 2007 Gregor and some fellow prisoners escape
from state prison in Kentucky. "Huh?" Apparently Gregor only
partially strangled his professor in Tennessee, popped the prof
into the trunk of his car, drove to Kentucky, and finished
killing him there, hid the rock in a cave in Kentucky, and was
caught 2 weeks later, the body still in the trunk. How do you
tell at that point where the murder actually occurred?

Tom Burke, the world's greatest caver--"Huh? There are
rankings? Maybe in 2004 the NSS News will publish annual
rankings?"--and his daughter Cricket are about to start a
through-trip of the world's longest cave--Labyrinth--which he
discovered and mapped 380 miles in 5 years (another very large
"Huh?" here--a 3-man team that surveys half a mile of cave has
had a very good day surveying). The 125-mile long through trip
is so NASA can test the feasibility of mining on the moon--Huh?
crawling through a cave at Earth gravity is the same as walking
in a mine on the moon? No attention is paid to the weather
forecast--Huh? Cavers going into extensive stream passage pay
attention to weather forecasts or are short-lived--I have seen
water shooting out of a 6x6 foot cave entrance (normally dry) as
if from a fire hydrant.

Gregor and his gang, rather than go into an entrance close to the
moon rock, go to an entrance some 40 miles away--carrying no
caving gear at all (Huh?) and by coincidence, arrive at the
entrance just as Tom Burke and his crew arrive--so the bad guys
grab cave gear and take Tom and Cricket to help guide them
through the cave to the rock--a trip which will take several
days. We then have scenes of going through the cave. Meanwhile,
Tom's wife Whitney is recruited by the police to guide the in
the cave--she and Tom are the only ones able to find their way
around (Huh? Did Tom and Whitney do all the mapping and set up
the resupply dumps all by themselves?).

Problems occur when a huge earthquake collapses various passages
and cave entrances. A gargantuan storm has occurred, causing
flooding, and the lightning has caused the moon rock to trigger
the earthquake (Huh? This is the first thunderstorm in central
Kentucky in 3 1/2 years? Why no earlier earthquakes?). A dam
breaks near the cave causing further flooding and more problems
for those in and out of the cave. Eventually Gregor and the
Burkes (Tom, Whitney,and Cricket) all get to the moon rock.
Soon, the book ends.

I still don't see how carefully-planning prison-breakers would
go to a remote cave entrance without cave gear--but I guess that
such things are forgotten amongst the action that follows.

There is little in the way of good (4 or 5 stars) cave fiction--
Under Plowman's Floor by Richard Watson is a 5-star novel about
exploring caves in Kentucky--based on Watson's own experiences
in the Mammoth Cave complex--no murders, no moon rocks. Shibumi
by Trevanian--not a cave novel--has some fine caving scenes.
Nevada Barr has a 2 to 3 star mystery centered on a cave in the
Carlsbad area. On the bottom lies Dallas Down, which has the
hero exploring caves in his cavemobile, and who thwarts the
people who are trying to collapse Dallas into the giant cavern
under the city. There is plenty of excellent non-fiction:
Watson & Brucker's The Longest Cave, about the exploration and
connecting of the pieces of the Mammoth Cave system; Subterranean
Climbers by Chevalier is also a classic. Exploring caves can be
enormously exciting--when you squeeze through a tight crawl into
a huge chamber no human has been in previously, for example. You
don't need fiction to make it exciting. Labyrinth would not have
suffered if the cave was not the world's longest cave and if
Burke was not the world's greatest caver--these are overworked
devices, much like thrillers where the president's daughter is
kidnapped--good fiction doesn't need such devices--the daughter
of the vice-mayor of Wartburg does just fine if someone must be
kidnapped in the plot. Sullivan has a lot of the pieces--he
calls cavers cavers and not spelunkers, for example, but there
are too many times when you pause and say "Huh?"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Summer read, but not Pulitzer material, December 21, 2003

By	Barbara L. Lemaster "Bibliophile" (Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the fictional equivalent of an action-adventure flick set to be released on Memorial Day weekend, with plenty of explosions, thrills, and chills and little plot to get in the way of the action.

You know a book isn't Pulitzer material if at the halfway point you begin fantasizing about which actor would play which character in the book.

It's a pretty fast-paced book with the general plot involving planetary geology and cave exploration. The author explains cave exploring well enough via his characters, but I'm sure hardcore cavers would nitpick. The main character is apparently a moon rock "66095" which is a powerful superconductor and is possibly capable of creating "a thousand Hiroshimas under our feet," according to one scientist character in the book.

Possession of said moon rock is between the US government, a dying scientist who actually studied the rock and who killed his professor over it; a group of hardened criminals, including an arsonist and a strangler; a family of cave explorers. My favorite character is the 14-year-old daughter, Cricket. She deserves her own action movie franchise if this book is ever filmed.

The book reads more like a screenplay, which was the same complaint I had with Peter Benchley's "Beast". There are even sound bites from the characters like, "When I go into caves, people die." The character who states this, Whitney, reminded me of Sylvester Stallone in the beginning of the movie "Cliffhanger."

I really want to like the book, but I can honestly say I've read better techno-thrillers.